The second UFC event was a 16 man tournament that was also won by Royce Gracie who again submitted all of his opponents quickly. Royce won his first fight in the third UFC but had to withdraw due to injury but came back and submitted all of his opponents to win the fourth UFC event. By this time the UFC had become a complete success as American viewers were captivated by the event. By the fourth UFC, more Americans were buying the UFC on pay-per-view then were buying boxing or professional wrestling. Also, as Davie had hoped, the fights were showing which martial arts were effective in a real life situation. Traditional martial arts such as Karate, Aikido, Kung Fu, Sumo wrestling, and Tae Kwon Do were proven in-effective as there practitioners were defeated pretty much every time. The more successful martial arts were Kickboxing, Muay Thai, Boxing, Wrestling, Judo, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. As Rorion had expected Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was king of the mountain at the time and a great number of people were interested in learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Rorion was able to accomplish his goal of starting up martial arts schools for his family members in America. This type of competition was also started up in Japan in an event called Vale Tudo Japan where Royce’s brother Rickson Gracie showed the same kind of dominance. Similar events were also started in Europe, Russia, and Australia.

Along with the fame and money, the UFC also started to get negative attention from politicians who thought the UFC was too brutal and violent. Some people watched the UFC because they were interested in martial arts, but others watched to see blood and violence. Many of the UFC’s fights did not disappoint the people who wanted to see brutality as they were bloody, violent affairs with fighters using tactics such as hair pulling, head butts, groin shots, etc. Despite this, there were no deaths and no injuries worse then broken bones, cuts, and concussions. But the UFC’s owners did see that there was potential danger and began to work with politicians to clean the sport up. Tactics such as hair pulling and groin shots were made illegal. Another thing the UFC was able to do was with the growth of other similar fighting organizations around the world, the UFC was able to get fighters who were already winners in mixed-martial-arts competition. Some of the guys in the early UFCs were brave but lacked skill; but now the UFC was only accepting proven winners who knew what to expect and how to defend themselves. This made the fights safer because there were much fewer mis-matches. The UFC continued to have great success for several years.
 

But despite Coleman saying he was going to be UFC Champion for as long as he wanted, the evolution of martial arts would continue with the entrance of kickboxing world champion and undefeated mixed-martial-artist Maurice Smith into the UFC. Maurice Smith had a plan to defeat Coleman. Since Coleman was an Olympic level freestyle wrestler, Smith knew he wouldn’t be able to stop Coleman from taking him down.

Therefore he prepared to neutralize Coleman’s attacks on the ground by using Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu techniques to make it difficult for Coleman to hit him and use his kickboxing defense to block and avoid the strikes Coleman would throw. Then after Coleman was tired Smith would use wrestling skills to get away from Coleman and then knock him out standing. Coleman basically said that he was going to turn Smith’s face into hamburger before Smith could execute his game plan. So the fight was signed and Smith worked his game plan to perfection. Coleman took him down and went after him with strikes, but Smith was able to make Coleman exert a lot of energy to get his strikes off and was able to avoid enough of them to keep Coleman from hurting him. After six or seven minutes, Coleman was very tired and was slowing down. Smith was able to scramble out from under him and then batter an exhausted Coleman with strikes standing until time was up. After the second Gracie-Shamrock fight the UFC started having time limits for the fights. Smith won the decision and the title and signaled another changing of the guard as far as dominant fighting style went. Coleman’s next fight was against Ken Shamrock-trained fighter Pete Williams and Williams executed the exact same game plan as Smith except that Williams flattened a tired Coleman with a high kick in one of the most brutal knockouts in UFC history.
 

 Sakuraba then went on to defeat 3 other members of the Gracie family with the biggest one coming over Royce Gracie in one of MMA’s most famous fights. Sakuraba was not only a great fighter, but also a great entertainer.His elaborate ring entrances and funny interviews made him a very famous celebrity in Japan. Sakuraba’s strategy against the Gracies was to use his superior striking skills to batter them standing up. Since Sakuraba was a decorated amateur wrestler in Japan he was able to stop their takedown attempts. Sakuraba was also very skilled with submissions and after he beat the Gracies up standing, he’d take them down and submit them. In the fight against Royce Gracie, Gracie had asked for a no time-limit fight to a KO or submission match. Sakuraba agreed to this. After 1 + hours of fighting, Royce Gracie’s corner threw in the towel and Sakuraba had won. The rivalry between Sakuraba and the Gracie family helped continue the momentum for MMA in Japan which is still a very popular sport in Japan right now.

Back in America, the sport of MMA was on it’s death-bed when the Zuffa organization bought the UFC in 2001. Zuffa is owned by Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta with Dana White serving as President. The Zuffa organization used it’s large financial backing and connections to state athletic commissions to turn things around for the UFC and the sport of MMA. They got MMA sanctioned in many of the states in which Sen. McCain had gotten the sport banned. Zuffa also got the UFC back on every pay-per-view provider in America. Another thing they did was set up a system of unified rules and boxing-type weight classes for every MMA promotion in the U.S. Three 5-minute rounds for non-title fights and five 5-minute rounds for title fights were in place. Also, Zuffa worked with the athletic commissions and further eliminated some of the more dangerous moves such as kicking a downed opponent. In a short amount of time, Zuffa added a tremendous amount of legitimacy and availability to the UFC and the sport of MMA. The UFC in the last couple years has sold out such famous boxing arenas as the MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas and Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Under Zuffa, the UFC has went from having events in 2,000 seat arenas with PPV buy rates around 5,000 to peaking with 15,000 in attendance and 150,000 PPV buys for the Tito Ortiz-Ken Shamrock fight. With the added revenue, the UFC has reclaimed from Japan and recruited from other MMA organizations around the world, many of the world’s top fighters and has taken it’s place next to Pride as the 2 “major league” MMA promotions in the world. With the UFC's recent cable deal with Spike TV, the UFC's popularity continues to climb.

The way the sport of MMA is currently structured is that there are the 2 “major league” organizations, UFC and Pride. There are hundreds of smaller or “minor league” MMA organizations around the world where fighters fight hoping to one day compete in the UFC or Pride.

 Most of today’s MMA fighters start out as being very good at one martial art and then learn the rest of the skills they need to compete in MMA. There are world-class wrestlers such as Olympic Silver Medallist in Greco-Roman wrestling, Matt Lindland, and Olympic wrestling competitors Dan Henderson and Mark Coleman who learned to strike standing up and learned submissions on the ground to complement their wrestling. There are world-class strikers such as top K-1 kickboxer Mirko CroCop who learned wrestling and submissions. Also there are world-class Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu players such as Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira, Ricardo Arona, and Matt Serra who have learned wrestling and striking. However, there are more and more fighters today who don’t come from one background but decide they want to be a MMA fighter and learn striking, wrestling, and submissions at the same time. Some fighters who are equally talented in all facets of the game are Tim Sylvia, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, and Murillo “Ninja” Rua.
 

One of the current shining stars in MMA is UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, Randy “Captain America” Couture who was a 3-time Olympic alternate in Greco-Roman wrestling before he started fighting. He then became a 2-time UFC Heavyweight Champion and then moved down and won the Light Heavyweight title. He is 40 years old but continues to defy mother nature by beating top fighters who are 10+ years younger then him. Another shining star is UFC Welterweight Champion Matt Hughes who was a Division I All-American in wrestling before he started fighting. He has made five defenses of his title and is considered by many to be pound-for-pound the best fighter in the world. And there is Vanderlei Silva who is Pride’s Middleweight Champion. Vanderlei is a world-class Muay Thai fighter and a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu who just won an 8 man tournament against many of the world’s top fighters. Another shining star is UFC Light Heavyweight Tito Ortiz who was the UFC’s champion for 3 years until recently being defeated by Couture. Ortiz has been on a number of mainstream TV shows in America including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the Carson Daly Show, and Best Damn Sports Show Period. He has also been in a number of movies most notable a major fight scene with Jet Li in the movie Cradle 2 the Grave.

 

Thanks for reading.